1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that causes a toner image to be fixed onto a recording medium.
2. Related Art
Image forming apparatus that form an image by an electrophotographic technique are configured to apply heat energy to a recording medium to which a toner image has been transferred and melt the toner to thereby cause the toner image to be fixed onto the recording medium. As techniques for causing the toner image to be fixed onto the recording medium, there is a technique that uses a heat roll to apply heat and pressure to the recording medium and a technique that uses a flash fixing device to irradiate the recording medium to which the toner image has been transferred with flash light from a flash lamp to cause the toner image to be fixed to the recording medium.
Usually, a flash fixing device is disposed with a fixing unit configured by a straight pipe-like flash lamp, a reflective plate that causes the light from the flash lamp to be reflected towards a conveyance surface of the recording medium, a box-like frame that houses the flash lamp and the reflective plate and opens towards the conveyance surface side of the recording medium, and a plate glass that covers the open surface of the frame.